Is your school really independent?
- Parents Unite
- Aug 8
- 5 min read
We hope everyone is rested and recharged as you prepare for back to school.
We want to acknowledge an important milestone that protected parents' right to choose private education for their children and established that states cannot arbitrarily restrict parents' decisions regarding their children's education. June 2025 marked the 100th anniversary of Pierce v. Society of Sisters. In 1925, the Supreme Court struck down an Oregon law requiring children to attend public schools, ruling that it unreasonably interfered with parental liberty to direct their children's upbringing.
What is the purpose of an independent school, and will these schools remain relevant as we look ahead to the next 100 years?
Independent schools have been a resource for families seeking high-quality education for hundreds of years. Many were founded on Judeo-Christian values and principles of excellence, rigor, civil discourse, intellectual challenge, and a relentless pursuit of truth. But schools have changed. In lockstep, independent schools have abandoned their traditions of excellence for new pedagogies that are ideological, conformist, and deeply illiberal. Schools have taken it upon themselves to solve societal problems by coercing anti-Western values on their students out of concern that parents might not instill the “correct” values.
Why is this happening? Accreditation and governance, the accountability systems meant to help independent schools flourish, have led to their ideological conformity and highly politicized social justice agenda. But these are the same levers that can help schools regain their independence.
How would schools do this?
1. Schools should advocate for changing the accreditation core standards. Accreditors must adapt their standards to remain relevant in a changing world and shifting culture, and boards of trustees must hold them accountable, particularly when they compromise the school’s mission. This would require moving on from DEI and gender ideology, and “permitting and encouraging freedom of inquiry, diversity of viewpoints, and independent and critical thinking.”
2. Commit to promoting transparency—create a digital library of school accreditation reports (with recommendations) and bylaws that parents can access. Schools should be proud of their accreditation self-studies and share them. The lack of transparency in sharing school accreditation reports prevents parents from making informed decisions about the school and assessing “truth in advertising.”
3. Consider alternative accreditors such as the American Academy for Liberal Education (AALE), and allow parents to direct their children’s upbringing, which includes passing on their values. You can read about their standards here:
4. Look at what the New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE) is working on to see how accreditation might be used to reform higher education. NECHE is proposing new standards that would remove the “diversity,” “equity,” and “inclusion” standards they have imposed on colleges and universities.
5. Understand NAIS's role in manipulating quality control and accountability, and question the “costs” of your school’s NAIS membership.
NAIS was founded in 1962 and charged itself with shaping the independent school landscape, and it has. It has coerced schools to become agents of social change by training students to become social justice activists who must express fealty to only three causes: race, gender, and climate.
In light of the 100th anniversary of Pierce v. Society of Sisters, Debra Wilson, the President of NAIS, made the case for independent schools and presumably the justification for NAIS.
Wilson acknowledges that “Independence comes with tremendous responsibility and accountability. Independent schools are committed to continuous institutional growth through rigorous, state-approved accreditation, in addition to ensuring they remain accountable to their communities.”
Parents might ask how schools are “accountable to their communities” and to which communities they are accountable. NAIS and accreditors prioritize schools over parents and students. Parents sign away their parental rights when they sign enrollment contracts. If parental/student values are not aligned with the school's regarding the politicization of the classroom, they are told that the school may not be a fit. As a result, students with right-of-center viewpoints have been forced to self-censor. Will any of this be different this school year?
Wilson says, “The freedom and accountability embodied in the independent school model are the source of its strength. However, as long as NAIS is 'in charge' in its current form, schools will not be free.
NAIS has used the accreditation process to distribute its content to all the “independent” schools. NAIS doesn’t hold the content they deliver or those that “teach” it to measurable standards—facts and scholarship are blatantly missing, and qualifications/expertise to develop others largely rest on “lived experiences." This has resulted in curriculum changes, declining standards, and the homogenization of previously unique independent schools.
The boards of trustees have blindly followed NAIS's " leadership.” Boardrooms, like classrooms, have become inhospitable to viewpoint diversity. Trustees are complicit in this detrimental shift by not speaking up and asking tough questions.
Schools don’t have to conform to groupthink. It’s time for trustees to think independently, particularly as schools face many challenges, such as increased cost structures/unsustainable business models, attracting and retaining the best and brightest teachers, AI, a lack of confidence in higher education, and increased market competition from emerging interesting new schools, like the following:
Alpha School—“Alpha’s 2 Hour Learning model harnesses the power of AI technology to provide each student with personalized 1:1 learning, accelerating mastery and giving them the gift of time. With core academics completed in the mornings, they can use their afternoons to explore tons of workshops that allow them to pursue their passions and learn real-world skills at school.”
Will this be the year schools unleash their independence and start pursuing truth?
In a recent piece for the NAIS blog, Patrick Campbell wrote an article titled, What Kids Are Really Doing When They Don’t Tell the Truth. Campbell says, “Ultimately, our goal isn’t just to get kids to follow the rules—it’s to help them become people of integrity. This kind of growth doesn’t come from fear, rather, it comes from trust, connection, and the belief that honesty is safe, even when it’s hard.”
Schools need to help kids tell the truth, but to do that, the schools and teachers must model that behavior. It’s time that schools value honesty over “niceness.” Lying to children is not kind, particularly regarding pronoun usage. Even the UN now admits that gender dysphoria is “socially contagious.” Social transitioning (use of pronouns) is not harmless. It often masks deeper mental health issues. It violates children’s rights. Schools must halt these practices to avoid causing irreversible harm.
With some help, this may be the year that schools encourage students to become independent thinkers and truth-tellers instead of conformist social justice activists. Independent schools need to be places where parental liberty is protected.
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